


The Life and Death of Itachi Uchiha Or Shattered Shards: Broken But Not Unmade

by LeoOtherLands



Series: The Life and Death Concentrations [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Divergence, Comfort, F/M, Kindness, Loss, Love, M/M, Multi, Other, Pain, Peace in Death, Self-Acceptance, Sorrow, self-forgiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 13:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16788322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/pseuds/LeoOtherLands
Summary: A concentration of the life of Itachi Uchiha, combined with some of his most moving quotes, and intermixed with non-canon relationships.





	The Life and Death of Itachi Uchiha Or Shattered Shards: Broken But Not Unmade

_If you want to know who you are, you have to look at your real self and acknowledge what you see._

What I offer are glimpses, like images reflected in the fragments of a shattered mirror. One here, another there. The disjointed particles of a life viewed by its owner as I dissolve into death. The first sharp-edged piece I grasp is self. Here is a man. Always small and thin for his age. Slight, some would say, with long, deep lines carved in his fine featured, high cheek-boned face from his eyes to his mouth (the signs of ill fortune, if men’s whispers are to be believed), and dark, uneven hair to match his dark eyes. Deep, brooding eyes, full of the things they have seen.

Yes, here is a man, but once he was a child. A child whose years were marked by violence. Another jagged shard in my hand.

I was four when the Third Great _Shinobi_ War swept the world, and four when my father first brought me to a battlefield, where I attempted to give water to a dying man who, in turn, tried to kill me for the head band I wore, forcing me to kill him instead. I was four when I first felt my dark eyes burn with the fire of the _kekkei genkai_ to be awakened in me and understood there was something wrong in the world, and I would never know peace until it was remedied. It was at this slender age, I swore I would change it, this inexplicable wrong. Such a heavy burden for one so young, but I did not feel it or see it so. I knew only I desired to end war and required strength to accomplish it. It was my dream, and I harbored no doubt I could fulfill it, only pursuing it with the dauntless energy of the protégé.

It was the intensity of my self-imposed training which brought Shisui into my life the next year. I was in the woods training with _kunai_ when he asked to practice with me and offered his friendship. I was accepting but wary of the older boy, until I discovered we shared the same passion and dream. When I knew he would end war and see the world set right by the blood of his desire, I could not help but love him.

But I cannot say he was my first love. No, this right will forever be held by Sasuke. My dearest brother. I knew two things most clearly from the first moment I held him in my arms. Supporting his living weight against my chest, I understood here was a new, pure life born into a world gone wrong, and I understood I must protect him. Always.

Yes, Sasuke was my first and best love, and it seemed I was his. From the moment he looked up into my ill-fortuned face, it was my hand which could sooth him and my voice which could lull him and my arms which could hold him safe. Even my mother and father acquiesced to this, calling on me when my Sasuke would not be quieted.

_It is foolish to fear what we have yet to see and know._

In this way of Sasuke’s love for me, it was my arms which protected my brother during the Nine Tails attack which, enacted the first scene of the Masked Man’s play, by sowing the seeds of dissatisfaction and mistrust between my Uchiha Clan and the rest of _Konoha_ village. In the attack’s aftermath, the Uchiha’s were relocated en masse to the outskirts of _Konoha_ out of fear we had perpetrated the attack.

But I knew this not at the time, and the change suited me fine. It placed my home near the edge of the village and allowed for easy training in the woods with Shisui. Sasuke may have been my first love, but Shisui was my second love and what I felt for him cut a gash I would never be able to stanch again.

_Knowledge and awareness are vague, and perhaps better called illusions._

When, in my sixth year, I entered the Academy, Shisui’s presence and constant companionship and rivalry were the only things to keep me from falling into despair at my own boredom. Was not the Academy meant to teach me? Was I not to learn the strength necessary to change the wrong in the world? Instead, my dream was only laughed at and disregarded as an impossibility. It was only with Shisui I learned.

Yet, the Academy gave me one treasure. Izumi. She came, _Sharingan_ blazing, into my life to defend me when I needed no defending. At first, I was unsure of her, always more off balance with women than men, but her continued and persistent presence in my life served to wear away my unease. By the time I graduated early from the Academy, I found myself sharing dumplings with her beside a lake at sunset. Through, I continued to keep her at a remove and focused my attentions on my resolve, it was that day, beside the lake, another sliver of reflected glass in my skin, I knew Izumi to be my third love. She was powerful in her right, but full of kindness and no desire to fight. I recognized in her what was necessary for a world without war.

Following my graduation, my time with Team Two was hardly better than that spent in the Academy. At last, I recognized my talents were wasted, but could do little beyond put up with it. Sasuke, Shisui, Izumi, and my own decided determination were all which sustained me and allowed me to move forward. Just as they were all that held me together and held me firm when my team mate, Tenma Hoshigaki, was killed before my eyes by the Masked Man, on a mission which should have held no danger.

It was that day in my eighth year, four years after I first felt their burning, when my dark eyes first went red with the _kekkei genkai_ of my clan. I pressed my hand to my bleeding eyes and fell to my knees, thinking only I would die before the Masked Man, despite it all, still too weak to stop death or war. But I was spared by some chance. A chance I would hold in my heart, dark and silent, many years.

Years… Time went on. I became a _chūnin_ the year I turned ten, passing the _chūnin_ exam alone by special permission, and joining the _Anbu_ the year after this easy success. At last I felt myself put to adequate use, and at last, among true _Shinobi_ , I felt I may have a clear path to my goal. And there, in the _Anbu_ , I met Kakashi Hatake.

The older man was my superior and aloof, but I could not help but love him. Something in his very quietness appealed to me in my own normal silence. As the time passed, lengthening to years, I understood him to be my fourth love, this man who hid his face under a mask and his feelings behind an _Icha Icha_ novel, yet felt so deeply for all of it, hating the pain of war.

During this time, I began to feel the form of my love change, as my body and mind matured. I gave it in my same, innocent understanding this was so, this was what must be done with love. But I began to want something in return. A thing I did not understand.

It was to Shisui I, at last, unburdened myself. In the secret shadows of the woods where we trained, I felt safe to reveal parts of my inner self I would offer nowhere else. And, it is one of the sharpest slivers of my life, my friend and love’s face as his frown knit his brows, listening to me speak. Yet, he nodded and asked if this was what I meant before leaning into kiss me.

My lips tingled, and I pressed a hand to them, looking into Shisui’s eyes. He nodded again, said he guessed it was, and pondered a moment. Then, slowly, he offered what it was I had wanted. A sharp memory. One which cut my heart so many times after, but which I clutched all the tighter for the pain. It is better to feel the pain than to relinquish the love.

There were many times after, and not only with Shisui. Izumi initiated our romance, ever the leader between us, as I was so clumsy with women. But it was I who first reached for Kakashi, feeling no such unease for my fellow men. My superior was reluctant at first, but came to me one day, unannounced, and gave no remorse or repentance after.

My loves. All my loves. My brother, who hungered for my attention, but who I could only render it to in the form of pokes to his forehead. _Next time, Sasuke…_ Shisui, Izumi, Kakashi… It was strange, even to me, I should love so many when most only loved one, but I did, and I loved none less for loving the others. I spoke of this to Shisui one day after we had shared love, but he only smiled and said I loved each in my own way, and for my own reasons, and it was well.

This was true. I loved Sasuke as the ideal of what I trained and worked tirelessly to protect. My dear, little brother, who wanted only to be near me and train alongside me. I loved to watch him grow, so senseless of his own potential. I loved Shisui as my brother in arms, the one who knew me best and shared my ultimate desire to end war. I loved to watch him rise from our bed and pull his pants about his narrow waist, to watch him dress in his gear. I loved Izumi for her kindness, her sweetness, her softness. I loved to watch her smile at me as she drifted to sleep in my arms, her hair tangling over my flesh. I loved Kakashi as another brother in arms, one who was scarred, one who showed me what I fought to end. Suffering. I loved to watch his face as I took off his mask and revealed his strange, unnatural _Sharingan_ coloring his left eye with Uchiha fire. I loved this act, one more sensual to me than any which came after (as he showed his face to no one) and I loved to hold him, this man older than I.

Kakashi was different from my other loves. He held sorrow like a blade. Our love hurt him, even as he was accepting of it. With slow kindness, I pressed him to share with me why. In a sign of his feeling for me, he did. He had loved before, and deeply, a friend, Obito Uchiha, whose _Sharingan_ he held, and a lover, Rin Nohara. Both had died. One he was unable to save, one who had died by his hand. He could still feel her there, his fist through her chest. And, he could not stop crying. I held him as he sobbed and attempted to comfort him with my body as he said her name over and over again.

I did not hold Kakashi’s sorrow against him and did not resent his pain, but I was not to understand it until I experienced it. Only when I shared it was I to know why he masked his face.

_You focus on the trivial, and lose sight of what is most important, change is impossible in this fog of ignorance. How can we evolve when regulation is all we know?_

When I had joined the _Anbu_ , my father, Fugaku Uchiha, head of my clan, had also admitted me to the clan meetings within the _Naka_ Shrine. As I, on one hand, grew closer to the Third _Hokage_ and the secrets of _Konoha_ , I, on the other, learned the discontent of the Uchiha. Without desire, I became entangled in both. In pain, I tried to sooth my clansmen, but the seeds of the Masked Man had been sown long and well and I was all too young to know it.

Shisui found the truth of it before I could grasp it. I will always see him standing, back to the cliff, blind, face bleeding lines like tears, holding out his left eye to me, and begging I take it. My Shisui. He who first took me to him in love will always be smiling at me, throwing himself backward to drown in the _Naka_ river. _Don’t try to stop me, Itachi…_ He I loved best, beside my brother, was the first I was to lose, awakening my _Mangekyō Sharingan_ , searing my sight with a bloody fire ever to burn me.

His death, and the why of it, was a devastation. Worse, it was I who took the responsibility for his death upon myself before my clan. And, it was he who had truly killed my love who I need submit to. Lord Danzō Shimura stripped everything from me with his blade of truth. My clan intended a coup d’état. If they succeeded, or even if they failed and their treachery were known, _Konoha_ would be left open to attack and a new war would be born. I could end my clan, sparing only my brother, or I could allow war.

_People live their lives bound by what they accept as correct and true. That is how they define “reality.” But what does it mean to be “correct” or “true”? They are merely vague concepts… Their “reality” may all be a mirage. Can we consider them to be simply living in their own world, shaped by their beliefs?_

Against my own heart, I felt there to be but one choice. On my first battlefield, I had decided war could not be. I would give up all I loved and take upon myself the guilt of blood. So others may be guiltless.

I do not say my choice was right nor wrong. It was mine. I put on my gear, I found the Masked Man, enlisted his help, and I came down upon my clan under the full moon.

It was Izumi I went to first. I would allow the Masked Man much, but there were some who only my hand would take. To Izumi I gave the _Tsukuyomi_ , a sweet dream of what our lives could have been in a world not gone wrong. She fell into my arms and thanked me, even as she knew I deprived her of that life.

I was empty from it when I came to my mother and father. They knew why it was I was there and only knelt and forgave me, telling me not to regret my path, but to protect Sasuke. I was still weeping for them when my brother found me over their bodies.

My first and best love, he I must protect always. Eyes on fire with the _kekkei genkai_ and sorrow, I felt I must protect him with hate. He must hate me and grow strong, so no one could take advantage of his power. Heart gone cold with pain, I terrorized him, told him to despise me and to live his miserable life until his eyes matched mine. _Come to kill me, little brother..._

Shisui… Izumi… Sasuke… Lost.

And, Kakashi? For my deed, my name was placed in the Bingo Book alongside the most wanted criminals of _Konoha_ , and my love tasked to kill me should next he see me. Lost.

_Konoha_ secure for my crimes, my clan’s name clean, mine sullied, my brother alive for my exile. With these things in my heart, I went with the Masked Man, to watch him and prevent his further treacheries if I could.

_We do not know what kind of people we truly are until the moment before our deathes. As death comes to embrace you, you will realize what you are. That’s what death is, don’t you think?_

What remained of my life was to be spent with the _Akatsuki_ , hunted and hated and pained. Among them, I was partnered with Kisame Hoshigaki, comrade slayer without remorse. Perhaps it was considered well fitting. It mattered not. The gray, sharp-toothed man was to be the last love of my short existence.

I had become as Kakashi, holding my pain like a shattered fragment and allowing myself to bleed so I would not forget. I loved Kisame because he was unlike me, he was what I was not and could never be, and my pain rolled off him like water off the flesh of a shark. And yet, for all our differences, if I had but known, I would affect him too. He would become like me in his death. Loyal. As he was not in his life. This, too, mattered not. I loved him without this knowledge. I loved to wake up beside him in our bed every morning, loved how he would sneer at me and force me to carry on in despite of my acquired emptiness. Kisame was all that allowed me to carry on and finish what I started, pushing me on even when the coughing commenced, and I began to taste my own blood on my breath, forcing me forward long after I had admitted I could not fulfill the end of war.

Kisame and Sasuke. I had wounded my brother deep and proceeded to goad him to hate me at every turn. I had saved his life and told myself what I did after was to protect him, but I could not pretend. I tortured him, I forced him to relive our parents’ deaths, I planted in his heart a shard of my own pain, which drove him onward, passed friendship and love, to vengeance.

I could not lie to myself. I had failed in everything.

_People’s lives don’t end when they die. It ends when they lose faith._

Everything but this. My brother grew strong and followed his own path. Not friends nor enemies held him from following after his heart. In him I held faith, a faith all the truer because it was reflected in another and not fully centered in self. I was never so proud as when he came to kill me. Never so happy as when I, at last, poked my bloody fingers to his forehead, for what I thought would be the final time, and imparted to him _Amaterasu_ with a smile. Shisui’s smile from the cliff. _I’m sorry, Sasuke. This will be the last time…_

Yet, it was not the last time. One never expects to come back to life, but I was given this. This, and a final chance to redeem mistakes. Kabuto’s control of me, in his reanimation _getsu_ , was broken by some odd chance, and I was allowed to meet my brother, my Sasuke, a final time with him knowing the truth of me. Not the cold murderer of our clan, but the broken _shinobi_ who offered himself to divert war. We were able to fight alongside one another, and, I, to lock Kabuto in the _Izanami_ , ending his _getsu_ and part in the war, which had come to the world in despite of all I could do.

And here, life a mirror of sparkling pieces, as my reanimated body goes to glinting dust, I am able to hold him a last time, forehead pressed to his, and confess I made mistakes. I should have trusted in him to help change our clan’s fate and the tide of history. But, now neither of our mistakes matter, and I do not care for whatever crimes he may commit hereafter. We have both followed our hearts in a world gone wrong. _Whatever you do, I will love you forever…_

_Those who forgive themselves, and are able to accept their true nature… THEY ARE THE STRONG ONES!_

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments, and make it a point to reply to every one I receive. Also, feel free to come hang out with me and a group of other amazing fic writers and readers on [Discord](https://discord.gg/sf4E5Up) and in our Facebook group [AO3 Armada](https://www.facebook.com/groups/601270063618951)
> 
> Or even poke around my [author page](https://www.facebook.com/LeoOtherland/)
> 
> There will be some fun things happening there later in the year.


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